TSPDT

Key Production Countries: France, USA
Key Genres: Drama, Fantasy, Adventure, Action, Romance, Comedy
Key Collaborators: Hervé Schneid (Editor), Dominique Pinon (Leading Character Actor), Guillaume Laurant (Screenwriter), Aline Bonetto (Production Designer), Marc Caro (Director/Screenwriter/Production Designer), Audrey Tautou (Leading Actress), Gilles Adrien (Screenwriter), Claudie Ossard (Producer), Bruno Delbonnel (Cinematographer), Darius Khondji (Cinematographer), Jean-Claude Dreyfus (Leading Character Actor), Ticky Holgado (Character Actor)

"Jeunet first came to international prominence with Delicatessen (1991) and City of Lost Children (1995), two films he co-directed with artist and comic-book designer Marc Caro. The duo had previously made several award-winning animated shorts together, and continued in the same vein for their features. Both films were live-action 'cartoons', with disturbingly quirky, hermetic universes that were simultaneously retro and futuristic, dictated by a delirious logic and captured by a fish-eye lens and MTV aesthetic… They created a distinctive brand of Grand Guignol fairy tales, graced by Jacques Tati-esque inventiveness and populated by a company of Federico Felliniesque grotesques. " - Lloyd Hughes (The Rough Guide to Film, 2007)

"A self-taught filmmaker with a remarkable visual sense, Jean-Pierre Jeunet started in animation, and along with partner Marc Caro, crafted fantasy-oriented short films that displayed wonderful ingenuity and an impeccable sense of design and atmosphere… Sometimes drawing comparisons to Monty Python alumnus Terry Gilliam, but retaining a truly distinctive aesthetic sense and vision, Jeunet emerged as an important artist whose approach and imagination were best served by projects that allowed him to indulge his creative potential with a minimum of front office interference." - John Charles, Turner Classic Movies

"Audiences have come to expect an astonishingly inventive visual style and black humour from the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet." - Ronald Bergan (Film - Eyewitness Companions, 2006)

"Recurring themes of love, eccentricity, and surreal whimsy mark Jeunet’s films. They often depict unconventional characters navigating a world that blends the mundane with the fantastic. His approach to filmmaking revolves around weaving intricate narratives filled with offbeat humour and charming details. For instance, Amélie follows a young woman’s journey who finds joy in orchestrating the lives of people around her while dealing with her isolation. Similarly, Delicatessen presents a post-apocalyptic world with its uniquely humorous and eccentric lens." - Bronze Screen Dream

"It is not Jeunet's stories that capture the imagination so much as his kid-in-a-sweet-shop stylings, all exaggerated sound effects, swooping cameras and impossible, sun-burnished vistas… Perhaps it is appropriate to think of his films as glorious Rube Goldberg machines, with disparate parts working together in eccentric, interconnected harmony to create something new." - Matt Glasby (A-Z Great Film Directors, 2015)

"The chaotic nature of fate lies at the heart of Jeunet's work, whether it is that of two potential lovers in Amélie (2001), a woman searching for her husband in the horror of the battlefields of World War I in A Very Long Engagement (2004), a man seeking revenge against the arms industry in Micmacs (2009) or a young genius setting out in the world alone in the Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013). The singularity of Jeunet's worldview jars against the dictates of a studio, as was highlighted when he took on Alien: Resurrection (1997), the fourth film in the popular and successful franchise. A few Jeunet-like touches notwithstanding, it remains his least characteristic work." - Ian Haydn Smith (Cult Filmmakers, 2019)

"My only recipe is sincerity. It doesn't always work, but it's a good start." - Jean-Pierre Jeunet